Revenge attack was covered up’

PUBLISHED: 16:49 18 February 2009 | UPDATED: 10:28 23 August 2010

A MAN is accused of a cover up after orchestrating a military style revenge attack on a victim who died two weeks after being beaten in his home. Kelvin Horlock, 29, from Strood recruited three men to attack Ted Shaxted, 36, at his Wallis Park flat,

A MAN is accused of a "cover up" after orchestrating a "military style" revenge attack on a victim who died two weeks after being beaten in his home.

Kelvin Horlock, 29, from Strood recruited three men to attack Ted Shaxted, 36, at his Wallis Park flat, Northfleet in retaliation for taking and crashing his mum's car, a court heard this week.

In a statement made by the victim to police before he died he remembered seeing three men who bundled him into his bath and then kicked and punched him.

Summing up the case at Maidstone Crown Court the prosecution said Mr Horlock had got rid of an Audi car on December 3, 2007, a day after it was allegedly used to drive a gang from the George and Dragon Pub in Galley Hill to Wallis Park.

Prosecutor Jonathan Higgs also claimed he ditched a mobile phone used to communicate with the gang.

Jonathan Higgs said: "The group carried out a savage, premeditated attack. They could have stopped at any point but they continued beating and kicking - that is the hallmark of a serious assault.

"The next day why was the Audi driven to Essex and never seen again? The only reason is that it would have tied Mr Horlock to the murder."

His defence team said the Audi was sold to a car dealer in November 2007, but there was no paperwork to support the claim and no record at the DVLA. Automatic number plate recognition technology (ANPR) placed the Audi driving to Essex on December 3, the same day it is alleged Mr Horlock bought a new phone from the Lakeside shopping centre. Data showed the new phone being activated through a Lakeside mobile phone mast.

But defending, Anthony Glass QC told the jury: "There is only circumstantial evidence on which the prosecution is relying. He did not go to 167 Wallis Park at all, he did not wait at the bottom of the stairs, he did not remain in a car."

Mr Glass said there was no time for Horlock to have driven to Wallis Park and committed the crime during a 10 minute period when he left the George and Dragon pub after 7.50pm.

Shaxted sustained multiple fractures and died in hospital from injuries to his chest two weeks later.